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Full-Text Articles in American Studies

Feminizing Presidents: Joseph Keppler And Gender In Gilded Age Political Cartoons, Jerome Gonzalez Dec 2011

Feminizing Presidents: Joseph Keppler And Gender In Gilded Age Political Cartoons, Jerome Gonzalez

American Studies Senior Theses

Amid the crowded newsstands of American cities in the late nineteenth century, the average reader flipping through a copy of Puck, a weekly humor magazine devoted to political and social issues, may have been surprised to see an unusual print: that of the President of the United States depicted in women’s clothing, with feminine features, performing a womanly task! These few drawings, alluding to both literary and social ideas, done by the Austrian immigrant artist Joseph Keppler, appeared in his Puck magazine in the years 1877, 1880, and 1884, coinciding around an election year. While Presidents Rutherford B. Hayes, James …


Neighborhood Blogging: How Localized Websites Are Redefining Community, Maryanne Engelbrecht Jan 2011

Neighborhood Blogging: How Localized Websites Are Redefining Community, Maryanne Engelbrecht

American Studies Senior Theses

In the last ten years, blogs have become an extremely popular and influential outlet for writing. Even more recently, there has been an influx in the creation of local, community blogs. These blogs focus on a particular area or neighborhood and serve as an interactive local newspaper for the community’s residents. These websites are unique in that those who frequently read and comment on them are not just members on an Internet community, but (in most cases) are also residents of a physical community as well. In his book, Imagined Communities, Benedict Anderson determines that communities are social constructs, …


So You Think You Know Dance?: Popular Dance And Cultural Identity On Television, Eleni Koutroumanis Jan 2011

So You Think You Know Dance?: Popular Dance And Cultural Identity On Television, Eleni Koutroumanis

American Studies Senior Theses

Dancing has reached new levels of popularity in America due to its publicity in new television shows over the past seven years. These shows have changed the image and ways of dance world, but more importantly the shows have brought dance into the Public Sphere and allowed the excluded to comment on, and in a way join, the dance world. Furthermore, these shows are bringing forward commentary on subaltern counterparts of two levels. One is dance culture, and those who make dance what it is today, being acknowledged in a greater public. The other refers to subaltern counterparts of a …


Download This: Artist Development And Interconnectivity In The Internet Age, Geoffrey Johnson Jan 2011

Download This: Artist Development And Interconnectivity In The Internet Age, Geoffrey Johnson

American Studies Senior Theses

The advent of internet media distribution has profoundly changed the way most people consume music and experience artists. Outlets such as Myspace, YouTube, Twitter, and peer-to-peer downloading networks have made music and artists more accessible than ever before. These changes have come largely at the expense of the traditional music industry model of distribution. My thesis proposes that these new media have radically redefined what it means to be a developing artist. Specifically, these media empower artists with the ability to circumvent music industry oversight while providing them with tools of self-promotion to autonomously construct a fan-base. My thesis will …


Beauty And The Barbie Doll: When Life Imitates Plastic, Alexandra Gaudio Jan 2011

Beauty And The Barbie Doll: When Life Imitates Plastic, Alexandra Gaudio

American Studies Senior Theses

My project will consist of three major parts. I want to take a brief look at how the hegemonic ideals of feminine beauty in the United States have evolved over the past fifty years, since Barbie was introduced in 1959. Also, I will go through a history of Mattel’s Barbie doll, including the development of the doll and some of its many different manifestations over the years. Then I will use these two components to investigate the relationship between exposure to the doll and young women’s perception of beauty, as well as other potentially subconscious ideals they may internalize from …


Peter The Nurse And Teresa The Politician: Exploring Gender Norms And Discrimination In The Workplace, Alex Filippo Jan 2011

Peter The Nurse And Teresa The Politician: Exploring Gender Norms And Discrimination In The Workplace, Alex Filippo

American Studies Senior Theses

Due to gender socialization, people of today’s society expect males and females to be intrinsically different. Thus, many careers are dominated by a single gender. In my thesis I explore the consequences that those who are employed in professions that defy gender expectations, i.e. a male nurse and a female politician, deal with. It is common for a man in a female dominated profession to face discrimination. The converse is also true. However, the discrimination each person suffers differs according to his or her gender. The negative discrimination that for instance, a male secretary experiences is most strongly generated by …


Engendering Injustice: Drug Laws, Drug Economies, And The Marginalization Of Women In New York State, Kate Mcgee Jan 2011

Engendering Injustice: Drug Laws, Drug Economies, And The Marginalization Of Women In New York State, Kate Mcgee

American Studies Senior Theses

On November 8, 1983, Elaine Bartlett left her apartment in Harlem, and headed to Grand Central Station. There, she met her boyfriend, Nate. They were headed to the Monte Mario Hotel in Albany. To any bystander, they may have looked like any other couple. But Elaine Bartlett knew different. That’s because she had a four-ounce bag of cocaine stuffed down the front of her pants. In 1983, Bartlett was a twenty-six year old woman with four children. A male friend, George Deets—although she knew him as Chris at the time—told her that if she delivered the drugs, she could earn …


From American Bandstand To Total Request Live: Teen Culture And Identity On Music Television, Kaylyn Toale Jan 2011

From American Bandstand To Total Request Live: Teen Culture And Identity On Music Television, Kaylyn Toale

American Studies Senior Theses

Because television succeeds or fails based on its ability to attract an audience large enough to entice advertisers, this project will operate under the assumption that popular television conveys some important cultural attributes of both its creators and its audience. American Bandstand and Total Request Live (TRL) each presented the most popular music of the day in ways that drew massive audiences from America’s youth, between 1952-1989 (Bandstand) and 1998-2008 (TRL.) I will treat these and related shows as venues through which to view American youth culture. The music itself adds an exciting component to the project: as music changed, …


Performing Femininity: Rae Bourbon And Christine Jorgensen Onstage, Taylor Riccio Jan 2011

Performing Femininity: Rae Bourbon And Christine Jorgensen Onstage, Taylor Riccio

American Studies Senior Theses

Drag performers and transexuals exist on the margins of the two gender binary. By existing on these margins these performers use both their physical bodies and humor to lampoon and subvert the gender binary and broaden the understanding of how gender is performed. Two performers, Rae Bourbon, a female impersonator, and Christine Jorgensen, a transexual who became a performer, placed their marginalized bodies on the stage and by doing so they heighten the subversion and critique of gender inherent in their performances.Gender is a normalizing force that dominates human interactions. Kessler and McKenna open their work on gender with the …


There’S No Crying In Baseball: Feminization, Sport, And Spectacle In The All American Girls’ Professional Baseball League, Dan Murphy Jan 2011

There’S No Crying In Baseball: Feminization, Sport, And Spectacle In The All American Girls’ Professional Baseball League, Dan Murphy

American Studies Senior Theses

My thesis focuses on the All American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL). Specifically, I explore aspects of femininity within the league and why Phillip Wrigley, the league’s first owner, and other league owners chose to accentuate femininity. In my research, I focus on certain features of the league, such as the league’s beauty school, player’s uniforms, sexuality, and race. I believe these and other factors played a role in how the league decided to market itself to Americans. Additionally I focus on how different members of the media wrote about the league. In writing about the AAGPBL, journalists from local …